Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Stuff in the Store

Stuff happening in the store:

Open New Years Day. We'll be open regular hours, 10am-10pm. The same goes for New Year's Eve (today). New Years Day is traditionally a decent sales day. This leaves only a few days we're off during the year: Easter Sunday, 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I would be willing to be open the 4th of July if someone would work it. I've tried Easter Sunday a couple of times with no luck. It's a great time to do paperwork.

Stuff on Sale. Flames of War is the big post-Christmas sales item, with about a quarter of the inventory at 40% off. My philosophy on sales is to do them infrequently and do them deeply. Dump stuff fast. Other stuff on sale includes a remaining basket of Reaper miniatures, AT-43 and a dwindling basket of unloved colors (Vallejo).

What's with Flames of War? We had a thread going on Facebook, but it comes down to this: Sales are sliding and have been for a couple years. They're down 20% from a year ago, and from the inventory it's clear that the game isn't attracting new players. "Bread and Butter" items needed to start armies aren't selling, which says that unless we can get some organized play or demos of this game in store, it's eventually doomed by attrition. Why don't we do it in house? It's a big game world out there; if a game can't generate enough interest for two guys to regualrly push it around on a fancy table once a week, what good is it?

Alkemy Expansion. Some folks have taken a chance on Alkemy starter sets, so I'm expanding the selection further with 3 man unit boxes and hero boxes for the three factions that have been purchased. That's everything available right now. There is no love for the Aurlok nation, but if this game gets going, I'll personally play it. I find it the most appealing. Yes, I know, I should lead by example and buy the box and start it myself....

Back for Convention Season. We took 2008 off for most conventions, but this year we're all in. We're confirmed for Dundracon (2/13-16), Conquest Sacramento (3/20-22) and Conquest San Francisco (9/4-6). We'll likely have some sort of event or sales weekend during that other con in May. I'll also be at the GAMA trade show in April. I'm tempted to do Gencon as well, but can't swing the expense right now. I'm half convinced that Gencon is a better trade show than GTS. Maybe if I'm fully convinced I'll do Gencon instead in 2010.

2 comments:

Hey, if the only school close by wasn't DVC I'd be all over FoW at BDG. I do play at least weekly, when I'm home.

A brief look at the calendar, at least in my view, will illuminate a problem: there is nothing weekly scheduled for FoW. Prospective players are probably reluctant to speak up about FoW because they don't know when regulars play or if they even play at all. A solution to this would be a time slot as a rider to another miniatures game time slot.

It's a chicken and egg thing. Nobody comes in to play because nobody is hosting an event. Nobody hosts an event because nobody comes in to play. What it takes is a couple people willing to come in on a regular basis. I understand you're not that guy; you're away at school. Those who are most active in our store community have run FoW events in the past and are quite frankly tired of Battlefront.

What we can't do is put a place-holder on the calendar, because that assumes there is activity on that night. We've learned from experience this is very annoying to potential players. Tell me more about how you think the rider idea would work.

We have some generic terrain that would work for FoW, and a smattering of 15mm terrain. I would be willing to bring in more 15mm terrain if there were events. However, there have never been regular events in the new store; only the old store.